The Trusted Few
by peacefulsands
Summary: Jensen has trusted very few people with the truth.


**The Trusted Few**

Written for the prompt - The Losers, Jensen, he's only trusted a few people with that information

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

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**The Trusted Few**

It says a lot about the team and about the feelings they engender in Jensen that he's told them anything, but he has and he's okay with that, he trusts them with it.

Obviously, on his records it states that if anything happens to him, the next of kin to be informed is his sister. He also tweaked a few databases to get his sister and niece included in his health insurance; there's a statement somewhere about dependents in the small print and Jensen figures that's close enough for him. They'd also be the recipients of any payouts after his death; although despite his line of work, he is pretty much hoping he gets to see his niece grow up. He likes life too much to want out early.

The brass though can assume what they want; he's not filling in the details for their benefit. The team though . . . the team are different.

Jensen's never felt this way with anyone he's worked with before. These guys though, they're in this mess together and they're getting out together. It's all very Musketeer-like, 'all for one and one for all' and that, in essence, is what makes the difference.

They've trusted him with stuff; he knows about Pooch's Jolene, about how they've tried and tried for a baby and how much they both want it and how if it doesn't happen soon then Jolene wants to try for fertility treatment; he knows about Cougar's family, how they left Mexico for the U.S. in search of a better life when he was just a babe in his mother's arms and how he's travelled the world with the army and never been back to Mexico, of how hard it was for his folks to settle and to try to get that better life they'd been promised, how it took everything just to keep going and how even now Cougar still sends more of his paycheck to them than he keeps for himself; he knows about Clay and his appalling taste in women and how the only woman he ever really loved, dumped him when he was captured and being tortured on a mission gone wrong, how she started going out with his best friend and how they got married on the day he returned to the US after having finally been rescued. Roque is probably the person he knows least about, but what he does know, more from stuff Pooch says than anything Roque himself has admitted, is that this is the third time Roque has been promoted to Captain and the first time he's hung onto the rank for more than a week. The first time he lost it for turning up drunk after being out all night celebrating the promotion and the second time he lost it for threatening his CO with one of his bigger knives and calling him 'a stupid motherfucker with less brains than a slug'. Jensen figures that sounds pretty much like the Roque he knows and that if Clay were less secure in his position, Roque probably would have lost it a third time by now.

So eventually Jensen tells them the truth about his sister and how she ran away from home at seventeen and took him with her; about how she got a job that didn't pay much more than minimum wage but used every penny to find them somewhere to live and enough food to eat while he finished school. He's told them how proud he is of her, because she managed to work her way up in the firm she worked for despite not having all the qualifications she should have had; how her boss helped pay for her to get the ones she really needed and how she supported Jensen long enough for him to get through a College degree. Sure, he'd got a full ride for tuition but that was never going to be enough to cover accommodation, food and the computer stuff he'd need to buy to make it through. She hadn't been willing to let him work every hour under the sun in dead-end jobs to make ends meet, instead he'd had one job as a technician in the computer labs between classes, but apart from that he'd been able to focus on his courses.

And then, then she got pregnant, just as he was finishing up. Sure she'd been married so in theory it shouldn't have been a problem, but Jensen already knew her husband was an asshole what he hadn't realized until she'd turned up to his graduation was just how big an asshole he really was.

Seeing his sister, bruised and battered with a wrist bandaged up had been more than enough to make him see red, but seeing her six months pregnant, bruised, battered and bandaged and he'd been ready to commit murder. Instead of that, they'd skipped out on his graduation ceremony and this time he'd taken her and run. They'd run and hidden and filed for divorce and when the divorce was granted on the grounds of sufficient police evidence to support her claims without needing his agreement, they'd run again, hoping that this time it could be the last.

Jensen had taken her to New Hampshire, he'd tried to find a well-paid job but nobody could anywhere near match what the army offered. He started out his training at Camp Edwards to be as close as he could to her. His aptitude at rising to the challenge and his difficulties in fitting in with the other recruits had them transferring him quickly and his life was no longer his own.

Now he keeps his sister and niece safe by being the best at what he does and ignoring the fact that he wants nothing more to be at home and watching his niece grow up, seeing her play her little league soccer games and seeing his sister smile again, because she does now . . . sometimes . . . when she isn't thinking about her brother laying his life on the line in other countries just to keep her safe here at home.

What he doesn't expect when he tells them about 'his girls' is the solemn promise he gets from each of his team-mates that if anything ever happens to him, they will make sure 'his girls' stay safe.

He's never felt like telling someone about his family would be the right thing to do before, but now, with this team, _his_ team, he knows it was.


End file.
